We Are the Ants(76)

Audrey knelt beside me. She held my hand to her chest. “Henry, Diego’s not gone.”

“He told me about being in juvie and about how he got sent there for beating up his dad to protect his mom, and I accused him of smashing the windows in Marcus’s car.”

“Oh, Henry, you didn’t.”

“I f*cked up so bad, Audrey.”

As she was about to say something, the floor beneath us vibrated. I leapt to my feet. “Shit!”

“What?” Audrey asked, but I was shutting off the light and grabbing her hand to run.

“Someone’s home.” Jesse’s bedroom had been over the garage, and it had always given us plenty of warning when his parents came home so that we could dress and compose ourselves and pretend we’d been playing video games while alone in his house rather than what his parents knew we’d actually been doing.

“I thought you said they were out of town!”

“They should be.” We flew down the stairs, but I stopped at the landing.

“What?” Audrey whispered.

“I need to check one more place.” Audrey pulled my arm. “You go. I’ll meet you at the car.” I dashed back up the stairs before she could stop me.

Jesse’s parents had practiced a fairly distant approach to parenting. They did the things parents were supposed to do, but they’d generally let him do whatever he wanted. He hadn’t needed to password protect his computer to keep them from prying or hide anything he didn’t want them to see. They respected his privacy. It was the cleaning people that made him nervous. Mr. Franklin couldn’t keep a housecleaner for more than a month, so the ever-changing array of people parading through his bedroom while he was at school had caused Jesse to develop a healthy sense of paranoia. Jesse owned few valuables he considered worth hiding, but those he did he kept in a hollow space under his bathroom sink.

I didn’t have much time, so I gave up attempting to be quiet, and ran through Jesse’s bedroom to the connecting bathroom. His parents had redecorated it as well, though not as radically. I dropped to my knees, opened the cabinet doors, shoved the stacked toilet paper out of the way, and reached into the hole. I felt around for the cigar box he kept his treasures in, but it wasn’t there. I reached as deeply into the hole as I could, twisting my arm around to feel with my fingers, but I felt nothing. The box was gone. Everything was gone.

I’d never know why Jesse killed himself. My sole consolation was that I only had to live with that for thirty-six more days.

I crept out of the room that no longer belonged to Jesse, and stood at the top of the stairs. Mr. and Mrs. Franklin were arguing in the kitchen.

“Don’t use that tone with me, Russell. I set the alarm before we left.” Mrs. Franklin’s voice was an iron rod.

“You’re right. It must have disarmed on its own.”

They fought while I stood quietly trying to figure out how to escape. The stairs were the only way down. When I heard footsteps coming my way, I ducked into the linen closet and shut the door behind me. I held my breath, praying that neither of Jesse’s parents needed clean sheets or towels. Five minutes must have passed before I heard water running from the direction of the Franklins’ bedroom, though it felt like days. I cracked open the door and peeked down the hallway. It was empty.

I ran down the stairs, through the dining room, and to the back door. I opened it, and as I prepared to dash to freedom, a voice called my name, and I froze.

“Henry Denton?”

I could have kept running. I should have kept running. Mrs. Franklin hadn’t seen my face. She wouldn’t have been able to prove that it had been me in her house. But I turned around anyway.

“Hi, Mrs. Franklin.”

The last time I’d seen her was at Jesse’s funeral. She’d worn a dignified black dress and hadn’t cried. The last year hadn’t changed her. She still wore black. Her blond hair was wavy and loose, curling around her neck. So much of Jesse’s looks had come from her—the slightly upturned nose, the eyes that saw through all bullshit, the long, thin fingers—and it hurt to see pieces of him standing right in front of me.

“I wanted to . . . I needed to see . . . I can’t believe you turned Jesse’s bedroom into a sewing room.”

Mrs. Franklin’s mouth moved, but no sound came out. Her face was emotionless, a blank lump of clay. There was nothing left for me to say, nothing left for me in that house. All traces of Jesse had been eradicated.

“Henry, I—”

I didn’t wait around to hear the rest. I bolted out the door and didn’t stop until I reached Audrey’s car. The lights were off, but the engine was running, and she peeled out as soon as I was inside.

We were both quiet until we reached Audrey’s house. She parked and shut off the engine. I climbed out and walked to the end of her driveway. Audrey sat beside me.

“There’s something I need to tell you, Henry.”

I wasn’t in the mood to talk. Mrs. Franklin’s face haunted me. The way she’d hardly seemed surprised to see me. How she’d disposed of Jesse like he’d never mattered. I hoped when the world ended, she would die terrified and alone. Even that was better than she deserved.

“Can I sleep here tonight?”

Audrey nodded. “Sure, but, Henry—”

“Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter.”